... formerly Canadian Free Press

Wolfgang Tillmans: my two-year investigation into the post-truth era

Wolfgang Tillmans: my two-year investigation into the post-truth era

There was no landslide. The protagonists of rightwing populism would have us believe that their side emerged from recent elections and referendums with an overwhelming share of the vote. But in reality their successes were less clear-cut. The Brexit vote that took the world by surprise was very close: only 51.8% of those who went to the polls voted to leave. Meanwhile, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took the Turkish presidency with just 51.4% of the vote and Donald Trump won the US electoral college – and thus the presidency – with just 46.1%, whereas his adversary scored 48.2%. In Germany, the Alternative für Deutschland party behaves as though it were a huge movement “reclaiming” its people, even though more than 87% of German voters chose other parties.